


life of the party

by framboise



Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: Bipolar Disorder, Canon Compliant ish, Character Study, Clubbing, Domestic, Established Relationship, Future Fic, M/M, Memories, Past Drug Use, Pillow Talk, Recovery, Sex, general warnings for non-graphic mentions of Ian's canon past
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-21
Updated: 2020-02-21
Packaged: 2021-02-26 12:58:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,507
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22834663
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/framboise/pseuds/framboise
Summary: In which Ian and Mickey are domestic bitches, and deal with some of Ian's memories of those lost months working in the clubs.Sometimes it's a smell – the cologne of a man hurrying past, sticky red bull and vomit outside a house party – or a phantom taste like the sweaty chalk of a pill smeared from fingers onto his tongue. Sometimes it's a throbbing beat or the itch of an uncomfortable couch under his knees. Sometimes there's nothing to pinpoint but still the memories lurch upwards and, if he's having a bad day or if a depressive episode is waiting in the wings, it can send him on a quiet spiral.
Relationships: Ian Gallagher/Mickey Milkovich
Comments: 32
Kudos: 320





	life of the party

**Author's Note:**

> I binge-watched Shameless recently and then I heard the song 'Life of the Party' by Allie X which sparked off thoughts about Ian's lost months working the clubs so here's a future fic where Ian deals with some of those memories and is (as usual) terribly fond of Mickey.

_  
I was the life, was the life of the party  
They stripped me down like a Barbie  
They say I kissed the king  
But I don't remember anything  
_

\- Allie X

* * *

Sometimes it's a smell – the cologne of a man hurrying past, sticky red bull and vomit outside a house party – or a phantom taste like the sweaty chalk of a pill smeared from fingers onto his tongue. Sometimes it's a throbbing beat or the itch of an uncomfortable couch under his knees. Sometimes there's nothing to pinpoint but still the memories lurch upwards and, if he's having a bad day or if a depressive episode is waiting in the wings, it can send him on a quiet spiral.

Running helps. Each judder of foot against asphalt, each huffed out breath. Aside from the unhelpful voice that comes with it and says, _Running away again, are we?_ until Ian tells it to fuck off, sometimes audibly, to the consternation of an old woman shuffling down the sidewalk or a new immigrant mother who will use him as a bogeyman to keep her children in line - _America is full of madmen_. Madmen who run like they can escape their demons.

Running is good, caring for his body is good, being careful is good, Ian repeats in his head, so focused that it's not until he's stood gulping down water from the faucet that he sees Mickey watching him from the kitchen table.

"Went for a run," Ian says.

Mickey hums, with that look in his eye that says he's endlessly amused, and baffled, by Ian's desire to state the obvious, to share every one of his thoughts.

His co-workers at the shop think Mickey is the strong and silent type. They don't know, like Ian does, that he can be a blabbermouth too — when he thinks the world is made up of idiots, when something's got his back up. Like the elderly neighbor who gave them the stink-eye when they first moved in to their one-bedroom condo, before Ian sweet talked her and she started leaving them cherry pies on their doormat; or the blonde divorcee who wouldn't stop rocking up at the shop with her immaculately-serviced jeep and making the moves on Mickey - _no means no, lady!_ he had yelled eventually, at least that's what Jesus, Ian's favorite of Mickey's co-workers, had reported back to him; or, last week, the trainee doctor sitting in for Dr Sangha who wanted to switch Ian's prescription seemingly on his own whims. Ian had appreciated Mickey's outpouring of abuse on that occasion, his insistence that they see another doctor, because there was something about the trainee that made Ian feel twitchy. It was only afterwards that he realized it was the smell in his office, the cologne, that it reminded him of one of them.

"Everything OK up there?" Mickey asks, raising his eyebrows.

"I'm fine," Ian says, swiping his mouth. He can feel a jiggle in his foot but if he doesn't look at it, and if Mickey doesn't either, then it's fine. "Just preventative, you know. You leave me some bread?" he asks, sprawling on the chair next to him.

"Nah," Mickey says, as Ian reaches for the empty packet and frowns.

Mickey puts a warm hand on his thigh and squeezes just too tight and _fuck,_ Ian is really that easy. He lets his legs fall apart.

"Could make you pancakes though?" Mickey offers, voice quiet in the way it only ever is when they're together. As many strides as he has made to be out, to be comfortable with being with Ian in public, Ian is secretly pleased that the world doesn't see everything, that he has this secret version of Mickey just for him.

"I could go for pancakes," Ian replies evenly as Mickey's hand cups him through his running shorts.

He doesn't have to look down to know what that looks like, the tattoos on his knuckles, the flex of Mickey's wrist. _Fuck._

"You're looking a bit warm there, Champ," Mickey says. He swipes a tongue across his mouth, tilts his head in that hungry way.

"It's warm outside," Ian reasons, feeling his toes curl, beginning to pant at each firm stroke over his cock through the shiny fabric.

Mickey cocks an eyebrow at the window, the thin winter light.

"I run warm, you know that," Ian shrugs.

Mickey hums and then with one of those sharp movements that remind Ian of the power he hides behind his lazy posturing, he shoves Ian's chair backwards and drops to his knees between his legs.

Ian wants to make some joke about breakfast but he loses his words when Mickey swallows him down, kicking one leg out, grasping Mickey's hair in one tight fist to make him moan.

Later, showering while Mickey shaves in front of the mirror, Ian uses the false privacy that the shower curtain offers to say. "That doctor, his cologne—"

He listens to the faucet turning off, to the neat tap of razor on the basin edge.

Mickey always uses the cheapest throwaway razors even though Ian has bought him at least two fancy ones already. _It's habit_, Mickey says. _Not because you don't think you deserve comfort?_ Ian had replied only once and was told to fuck off so loudly their elderly neighbor, Ethel, had knocked on the wall. _Look at me, afraid of comfort_, Mickey had sneered two days later, as he poured softener into the washer. _I don't know_, Mickey had mused sarcastically a month later when Ian offered him a bite of the French chocolate the mother of one of his favorite students had bought him as an Easter gift, _that looks fancy, comfortable, It's probably not for the likes of me_. Ian had shoved the square of chocolate into his mouth and they had wrestled before he fucked Mickey over the back of the couch roughly, the way both of them often preferred.

Even in his head Ian wants to run away from saying certain things, from thinking about them. To remember is one thing but to make Mickey remember too—

"His cologne reminded me of someone back then."

_Back then_ only ever meant one of two times – when they were kids, when Ian was a skinny idiot with floppy hair and Mickey the dirtiest angriest boy in America – or back then, when Ian was working the clubs, high off more than just his brain chemistry, fucking and being fucked and being taken advantage of.

He waits for Mickey to make a sound but he can't hear over the shower so he turns it off and stands dripping there behind the curtain.

"Mickey?" he says eventually.

"I'm still here," Mickey replies casually. The rasp of razor on skin starts up again and just when Ian feels a first shiver at the cold air, Mickey adds. "You want to talk about it?"

"I don't know."

"I'm here if you do."

That he can say such a simple sentence and mean it, that they can both say what they mean, dig into their emotions, and afterwards leave the room without torn knuckles or bleeding faces, would be unfathomable to younger versions of both of them, Ian thinks.

Still, although Mickey says he'll hear anything Ian wants to say, that he'll take it all – _You think I don't got dark stories, Sunshine?_ he said once when they were stoned and sprawled in the back of Mickey's truck, _You think I don't got skeletons, bodies thrown out back? _– Ian can't help but worry that he doesn't mean it, that one day he'll go too far, that Mickey will learn too much and walk away.

"Thanks," Ian replies and draws back the curtain.

Mickey's eyes roam his skin, looking satisfied at the marks. Ian's dick twitches.

**

In the break room on Monday, Ian and two of the other teachers, Laila and George, who are of a similar age and 'fuck it' temperament and are therefore good friends, are leaning as far as they can out of the stupid barred window sharing a cigarette.

"Is it bad to say I still feel drunk?" George says, "Like that nasty drunk when you're already on the come-down so you go and down three shots in a row and your body is like, here we go again motherfuckers," his voice drops but Mrs Lavelle, one of the oldest, and bitchiest, of teachers still gives them a look from the nearest table. "When's the last time you think she got wasted?" George whispers, handing the last of the cigarette to Ian.

"1925?" Ian offers and Laila coughs a laugh.

"Nice one," George says. Then he groans theatrically and slumps over the windowledge until the poking of one of Laila's killer nails (neon pink striped with gold today) has him flinching upright.

George is gay, and beautiful. The first time Mickey had seen him, when Ian and George were both walking out of school late after a meeting and Mickey was waiting by his truck, Ian had seen his face blanche.

_Don't worry_, he had teased, as he got in the front of the truck, _he's a top, it would never work._

_It better fucking not_, Mickey had muttered around a cigarette and the truck had shot out of the gates just a little fast.

_Seriously though, I'm a one-man man, you know?_ Ian had said later as Mickey had glowered silently. _Also he's femme, and you know that isn't my thing. I like something a bit rougher. Actually, he's only femme sometimes, he kind of code-switches at school I guess, does that whole hardass thing so the students don't give him shit—_

_You're digging your own grave, Gallagher_, Mickey replied with a huff of angry breath. But when Ian glanced over he thought he could see just the barest smidge of fondest on Mickey's face.

In the break room, the coffee machine chugs loudly. "It was a wild weekend though, and god did I need it. When's the last time you let loose, Red?" George asks.

And if Ian told Mickey that George called him that, then he really would worry that Mickey would slice his tires at the very least; it wouldn't matter to him that Laila was the one who started that nickname, that a few other teachers used it too.

"I go out," Ian says, somewhat defensively.

_Grandpa_, Laila calls him sometimes, when all he has to say of the weekends is that he stayed in with Mickey, went for a run, watched TV. But they don't know that being boring, being boring and _comfortable_ and content, is the real novelty for Ian, still.

"Yeah, to bingo night?" Laila offers.

"Well what did you do this weekend, Laila?" Ian asks, leaning back and surveying the room.

Teaching was never his dream, never any one of his manic career plans, but he likes it, he's good at it. Empathetic but not too soft. He can identify with his students enough to help them, to get on their level, but he also feels wearily older than them and able to leave all that teenage posturing, that angst and stress, behind when he leaves for the day – aside from the marking and the paperwork. (_You sure you working in a school and not a—not a fucking paper factory?_ Mickey had asked once blearily, waking up to a bed covered with essays one Sunday morning as Ian worked beside him.)

"Booty call," Laila replies. "The baseball player."

"Ooh, get you," George says. "I need me one of those."

"Well you can have him, if you want, he swings both ways, apparently."

"Really? Like for sure? He's not just on the down-low?" George leans further towards them. "He go down on you?"

"Uh-huh," she nods.

"You ever date a man like that?" George asks Ian.

Ian thinks of a younger Mickey fucking girls in a desperate attempt to appear straight. He thinks of that morning when he was there sitting opposite Mickey as he fucked a girl, his future wife, at gunpoint, and he feels a tiny echo of the panic and devastation. Coughs to hide it and rubs at his chest.

There's a memory – hazy and muddled like all of them from _back then_ – that surfaced once: lip-glossed lips, softness under Ian's hands. He thinks that one time, high and out of his head, someone had pushed him and a girl together. He hopes that nothing happened beyond groping. But hopes are pointless when it comes to memories, because all those things already happened. They're done, he did them, they were done to him. He can't hope and wish them away. He can only keep up a steady run forward, with pauses to catch his breath in his therapist's office. He can only breathe and visualize those memories getting smaller, losing their color and power, being covered up by the tactile here and now, trampled upon by the good future he has with Mickey.

"Not sure," Ian replies.

"I dated a girl like that once. Oh shit, I guess I am a girl like that," Laila says, eyes widening and then the bell for the next period goes off.

"Seriously?" Ian groans. "You bring up that story now when we don't have time to hear the whole thing? Tease."

"Got to give you two hoes something to look forward to for our next chat," she says, fondly tapping their cheeks before sauntering off.

"It's always the quiet ones," George muses.

"Laila? Quiet?"

"Maybe I meant you," George retorts. "Mystery man. I know you've got secrets and a colorful past. I have to because the thought of all this," he motions to Ian's body, "not ever once dancing on a table at some club would break my heart."

"I might have danced on a podium once or twice, when my friends dragged me up there," Ian says and is pleased when no panicked beat of his heart follows. It's good that he can joke, that's what his therapist says.

"Lord have mercy," George swoons and then Mrs Lavelle coughs pointedly. "You need any cough syrup, Mrs Lavelle?" George calls out, all sweet and concerned.

She turns away.

"I'll wear her down one day."

"I have faith in you man," Ian says.

**

"Do you think I'm boring, like a grandpa?" Ian asks Mickey on the El the next weekend as he sways under the influence of a rare second beer.

"You're unsteady on your feet like a grandpa," Mickey retorts, fond, and shoves him into a seat.

"It's the motion of the train."

He and Mickey have been to Mandy's fancy apartment on the North Side to meet her newest beau, a businessman who both Ian and Mickey knew was too bland, too vanilla, to last beyond a few months. _She needs someone difficult_, Mickey said once from under his truck as he fixed something and Ian sat on a box and watched him, _not like bad-difficult, but just someone that she can argue with, you know, someone she can boss around._

"Laila and George think I'm boring," Ian says with a mournful sigh.

Mickey laughs and Ian frowns. "You look like a child," Mickey explains, which doesn't make Ian stop frowning. "C'mon, stop pouting."

"But am I?"

"Are you boring? Nah. You're not boring."

He taps Ian's arm where it's clutching the rail. Every small touch in public, a brush of his hand to Ian's back, a clasp of his elbow walking through a crowd, a rub of his thumb to Ian's cheek in the dark corner of a bar, is something that Ian stores up like little gems, like he's a character in an 8-bit video game collecting hearts.

"You missing it? Going out?" Mickey asks later as they walk home, having obviously kept thinking about it all the ride back. Mickey is a deep thinker, Ian knows that, he'll worry at a thought like a dog on a bone.

"I mean, I miss lots of things, all the time," Ian says. Like his brain being normal before, like his mom being alive, like knowing exactly who had had their hands on his body. "I miss dancing sometimes, but I don't need a club to do that, do I?" he winks at Mickey but Mickey isn't going to take the easy bait. "Do you miss it?"

"Do I miss watching you give lapdances to geriatrics? What do you fucking think?"

"But you knew I was coming home to you," Ian presses, not even knowing what his thoughts are doing, what he's trying to say. "You could see how many people wanted me, would pay to have me, but then you got me for free."

Mickey huffs, frustrated. "Like _people_ don't check you out all the time now, like I don't know you're a fine piece of ass that could have a line of dudes ready to bend over for you. What the hell, Ian?"

"Sorry, sorry. I don't know. I'm just—"

"You're just being stupid, is what you are," Mickey suggests and then grabs onto his jacket, shaking him lightly and, after checking the street, smacking a kiss to his cheek.

"I don't care who else wants you," Mickey says later, panting as he rides Ian hard into their bed. "I don't care who wants to get their hands on you, what they'd pay for a minute with this cock. There's no one else in this room," he says and leans forward, trapping Ian's wrists, grinding in a way that makes both of them grunt. "There's no one else in this bed, got it?"

"Got it," Ian groans and then rises up to push Mickey on his back. He fucks in in tight jabs and then gets one of Mickey's legs up and over his shoulder, bites hard on the calf.

Mickey yelps. "Boring, my ass," he laughs and then he groans as Ian bites again.

Ian was worried after the meds, after _back then_, after therapy and everything else, that this, them together in bed, or at the kitchen table or in a bathroom somewhere or down an alleyway or in the hotel where he had taken Mickey on their very first vacation together, would be ruined. That he'd never be able to be as free as he was, to follow all the impulses of his body. To bite, to fuck, to stroke, to pant words he'd never say anywhere else, to lie back and let Mickey do all the work, to cry, to growl, to laugh. But he is, he does. Mickey smells familiar, like home, and his skin feels familiar too, and the sounds he makes. Only rarely does another memory intrude in, and when it does, Ian is good at telling it to fuck off and Mickey is good at reading the slight stillness of Ian's body and knowing how to bring him back. _You need a breather?_ he'll joke, like it's a stamina thing, or, _you thinking about essay marking, now? When you're in me?_ Or, just say his name. Kiss him, touch him.

_Thank you_ is a phrase he and Mickey never use out loud, even though Ian knows they both say it through their actions, their bodies. Thank you for looking after me, for dealing with this mess of a human, thank you for coming back, for not leaving, for giving this a second chance.

Later, as he wraps his arms around a dozing Mickey and counts off his mental check-list for the week ahead — a trip to the boxing gym for both of them tomorrow, school on Monday and his favorite class on the Space Race, date night (though Mickey never lets him call it that) to the taco place on Wednesday, Deb's daughter's performance on Thursday, Lip's thing on Friday night and then a no-doubt raucous Gallagher party afterwards and then another quiet Saturday in bed, here, with Mickey (if quiet can mean fucking so loudly that the downstairs neighbors shout up and so vigorously that Ian thinks he'll never catch his breath) — he thinks he should probably thank himself too, for rocking up at Mickey's house with a crowbar and a raging teenage libido all those years ago, because whatever might have happened in the aftermath, the pain they both have been through, he's glad this was the outcome.

"You bored of me?" Mickey murmurs sleepily, interrupting his thoughts.

"Nah," Ian replies and yawns so widely his jaw cracks.

"You sound it," he drawls.

"You wore me out," Ian retorts, pressing closer.

"Yeah, I did," Mickey replies and Ian knows just how cocky his face must look even though he's got his head turned away on the pillow.

"Maybe you're the grandpa, really," Ian muses. "Stubborn, set in his ways, old-fashioned."

"You calling me old?" Mickey turns over and gives him an unimpressed look. "Alright, Firecrotch, it's on." He turns back but clutches at Ian's arm around his waist so Ian knows he isn't actually mad at him.

"What's on?'

Mickey hums sleepily. "You'll have to wait and see."

**Author's Note:**

> Posting fics for new fandoms is always a bit nerve-wracking so please comment if you enjoyed this, thanks! :)


End file.
